Why not just grab a Tegra? Besides, AMD's already serving Microsoft and Sony with customized x64 variants.
The only rational thing to do would be to go with AMD and just get upgraded specs from the ps4 specs. 8 gigs of shared memory and 25% faster CPU and GPU speeds for cheap. 3rd party devs would come back pretty quickly given that porting would be extremely easy.
When Sony and Microsoft were APU shopping for the PS4 and XBO, it was a time when ARM didn't quite have 64 bit cores ready, which added obstacles to memory performance. Jaguar cores, at the time, were the best multi-purpose, little CPU cores available.
Today, that's no longer true. There's multiple 64bit ARM cores available, that would outperform AMD's Jaguar cores.... and Nvidia has capability to deliver an APU that would outperform the PS4 and XBO's APUs in pretty much all areas.... Such as CPU, GPU, and memory performance.
Intel could produce a superior to AMD console APU as well. They're able to put out 14nm chips already, and they can drop big amounts of really fast embedded memory on their APUs. Their X86 CPU performance is without rival, and what Intel may lack in GPU elegance, they can just make up for in raw transistor count.
This is going to sound a bit crazy, but there's a 3rd company that could also produce a superior APU to AMD. It's Samsung. Samsung is right up there with Intel in the bleeding edge of fab tech, they have engineers that can design powerful ARM CPU cores, and they have experience working with companies like Mali and PowerVR on custom SOCs. Do I think Samsung would be interested in making a console APU? Well, not really, BUT, they totally COULD if they wanted to, and they have the resources to produce a superior product than AMD.... and Samsung's memory technology could be a factor.
All that said, I have zero confidence in Nintendo with hardware at this point. I'm sure whatever decision they make, will be incredibly idiotic and disappointing.
@npaladin-2000
Intel's just passed AMD in APU graphics performance, due to their superior fab tech. Check the broadwell benchmarks. It's sad, really.... On the consumer end, the only advantage AMD still holds is in price. But that advantage would be less in a scenario where Intel and AMD were competing on a console APU, since Intel has it's own fabs, and AMD doesn't.
I don't think that Nintendo has the same level of chip engineers as Samsung, and they don't have their own fabs, like Samsung, so.... No on the Nintendo doing ARM themselves idea.
I mostly agree on the NVIDIA points though.
I would dislike a Nintendo microconsole, but I'm not sure if it would be a mistake or not. It might allow Nintendo to easily share content between mobile and the home micro console, which could have some appeal depending on how Nintendo leverages that advantage.
The console makers don't go to AMD for their "integrated" graphics options...they go to them for ATI RADEON GPUs. Heck, so did Nintendo, they just went PowerPC instead of x64 for their CPU. Sony and Microsoft are rocking custom RADEON GPUs running at around 800 MHz. No way Intel or Samsung can deliver that kind of juice, but NVIDIA can. And unlike reference ARM implementations, Tegra is a true octa-core design. And NVIDIA would love to score a console win, their last one was the PS3, they've got no presence in this generation, even in portables, except for the SHIELD line.
Here's how I would do it:
low power ARM apu to run the OS with a dedicated gig of some slow cheap ram
Intel Dual Core w/HT CPU clocked @ 4.0ghz + Nvidia GTX 970 class gpu (will be cheap by 2016) w/ 4gb dedicated VRAM
8gb system RAM
1GB SSD
Nobody would buy a $800 console with a billion fans running to cool the thing.
Intel cpu's and maxwell gpu's run cool and efficient. Where are you getting a billion fans or $800 from?
No, they are using APUs. There's very little custom about it.
Intel cpu's and maxwell gpu's run cool and efficient. Where are you getting a billion fans or $800 from?
For nintendo to stick with AMD and get my money they'd have to go at least Quad Core x86 @1.6GHz+ (28nm GF), 512+ GCN cores 6/8GB RAM & 500GB HDD/128GB+ SSD+External Storage.
Going ARM/PowerPC won't help Nintendo be a serious console player any time soon as consoles have moved on to x86 and very few major developers will work on porting to Nintendo. With the Wii they became the AMD of the console world, cheaper & less powerful (albeit more successful at that) & the Wii U is still too expensive for what it is.
If they did go ARM and aim to release before 2017 then Nvidia should be the prime candidate with 2/3/4 Denver+ Cores (14nm maybe), 512+ Maxwell/Pascal cores, 8GB LPDDR4 & similar storage options.
You want a 1TB SSD with a $350 GPU. That's $800 right there.
Then you expect a GTX 970 to be cooled without lots of fans? The thing can heat up to 85c if pushed hard enough in a small case. So it needs active cooling. Plus the proper PSU to run the hardware needs to keep cool, and the CPU would need a fan. One giant fan like on the XB1 just wouldn't cut it.
That's partly why they went with an APU. They could keep the size of the console down and not need lots of cooling.
An APU is composed of 128 GPU cores. The XBoxOne has 768, and the PS4 has over 1100. Yeah, very little custom.
@npaladin-2000
Intel's just passed AMD in APU graphics performance, due to their superior fab tech. Check the broadwell benchmarks. It's sad, really.... On the consumer end, the only advantage AMD still holds is in price. But that advantage would be less in a scenario where Intel and AMD were competing on a console APU, since Intel has it's own fabs, and AMD doesn't.
I don't think that Nintendo has the same level of chip engineers as Samsung, and they don't have their own fabs, like Samsung, so.... No on the Nintendo doing ARM themselves idea.
I mostly agree on the NVIDIA points though.
I would dislike a Nintendo microconsole, but I'm not sure if it would be a mistake or not. It might allow Nintendo to easily share content between mobile and the home micro console, which could have some appeal depending on how Nintendo leverages that advantage.
Intel's just passed AMD in APU graphics performance, due to their superior fab tech. Check the broadwell benchmarks.
At least use the proper term. You mean shader cores and that doesn't make anything custom. AMD has many models. They don't all have 128.
I would attribute most of Intel's iGPU performance to Crystal Well -- the eDRAM. Even Haswell performed well with its Iris Pro 5200, which also featured Crystal Well. The only issue is that Intel would have to be willing to massively scale up their iGPUs (the number of EUs) to even compete with the APUs found in the Xbox One and PS4. One huge hurdle of that would be the price. Intel is notorious for higher profit margins, and they don't normally like the relinquish that. Iris Pro parts are expensive, and I don't think that's going to change. I mean... the cheapest Broadwell with Iris Pro costs $244! There's no way you can build a competitive platform based on that, and I know you're going to say, "Well, that's the consumer price!" Yes, and we've already established that you're going to need a much stronger APU, which means the cost goes up.
When you start arguing over useless semantics is the point when you know you've lost your argument.
Also, I agree with him. They are custom APUs that were designed specifically to handle a higher graphics workload. It's not even just the larger iGPUs either... the memory setup is also different from what we see with AMD's standard APU.
All that said, I have zero confidence in Nintendo with hardware at this point. I'm sure whatever decision they make, will be incredibly idiotic and disappointing.
Yeah probably.
Which is sad. The NES was a beast in its day. As was the SNES. As was the N64. As was the Gamecube.
Agreed. Nintendo isn't getting a huge installed base on a traditional home console ever again. Just look at the Dreamcast. Look at all the lessons Sega learned from the Saturn. With the Dreamcast they made a powerful system, made it cost effective, easy to program. Hell they bent over backwards so crazy for developers they even partnered with Microsoft for some Windows tools on the thing. Right out the gate they came blasting with Soul Calibur and Sonic Adventure, what Xtreme should have been. And in the brief two years the system existed it just kept hammering out quality titles one after the other like crazy.
And.no.fucks.were.given.
if you piss off developers and gamers long enough, eventually they'll abandon you for good. I think that's more or less what Nintendo has done. And somehow I highly doubt they're even truly ready to learn from all their mistakes like Sega was.